Glossary · MES and ISA-95
Operations definition
German: Betriebsdefinition
In ISA-95 / IEC 62264, an operations definition is the information that defines how a manufacturing operation is performed, including the resources (personnel, equipment, material) and the segments or steps it requires. Production definition, often called product definition, is its production-specific form.
- MES
- Standards
In one sentence
In ISA-95, an operations definition specifies how an operation is performed and which personnel, equipment and material it requires.
Example
The operations definition for a calibration job lists the test equipment, the qualified technician role and the steps of the calibration procedure.
How it applies
- Engineering: Operations definitions are managed in definition management activities at Level 3 and may be derived from business-level definitions such as bills of materials and routings.
- Integration: Definitions exchanged with ERP must match the product and material identifiers used there.
- Operation: Execution systems use definitions to create work instructions, dispatch lists and control recipes.
- Documentation: Work instructions and SOPs are closely related to operations definitions. Linking them, or generating instructions from the same data, keeps procedures aligned with how the system actually runs the operation. Where the same resources appear in several definitions, consistent resource names across instructions and system data avoid confusion.
Operations definition vs. operations schedule
The operations definition says how something is done. The Operations schedule says what should be done, how much and when.